Observations of a geek.

Important Solutions Warrant Proper Analysis Prior to Product Evaluation

Posted Wed, 2009-12-02 23:36 by geekwisdom

I can't count the number of times a customer has started a brand new program/project request by asking me to implement a solution instead of solve a problem. Usually it comes in the form of, "Would you install XYZ application for us?" or better yet, "Does our environment support Ruby on Rails?"

Tabletop Trebuchet

Posted Wed, 2009-12-02 15:39 by geekwisdom

I was walking through Home Depot with my six year old son. As we walked around the store looking for a toilet seat I had the thought, "I bet my boys would have fun with a little trebuchet." I know, strange isn't it. Anyway, I had an idea of how I would build it so I bought some pieces of wood and we headed home to make it. After a quick Google search and some sketching on my white board my boys and I headed to the workshop.

Assimilated by the iPhone Borg

Posted Wed, 2009-07-01 23:47 by geekwisdom

I took the plunge, got the iPhone 3G [S] as a gift for Father's Day.

A big thank you to Saferating, Inc. who picked up the tab on the monthly data plan. Without your contribution, this missionary was going w/pen & notebook for scheduling.

The award for best feedback from the challenge goes to K. Hokanson, "Productivity and distraction have nothing to do with the device." So true.

Solution for umount "device is busy" errors

Posted Wed, 2009-06-10 11:04 by geekwisdom

We've all experienced it. We want to unmount something and the device is busy. Enter the lazy switch for the umount command.
umount -l /dev/
As soon as the last process stops using the device it gets unmounted. Many times this happens instantly.

Why I don't become a fan of pages for generic things and concepts on Facebook

Posted Sun, 2009-05-31 20:02 by geekwisdom

The "page" feature of Facebook is designed to provide a way for people to become fans of people, organizations, bands, etc. These fan pages are available to people who do not have Facebook accounts and administrators of fan pages have the ability to send updates to fans. Anyone with a Facebook account can create a fan page about anything, even things for which they are not the authority.

Personal Password Management

Posted Fri, 2009-05-15 14:02 by geekwisdom

In this video Software Architect, Steve Moitozo, addresses the issue of personal password management. For links to resources mentioned and a previous blog on this topic refer to Password Management. See the post Personal Password Management Survey to see the questions and the response numbers.

Firefox 3 sec_error_crl_invalid errors

Posted Mon, 2009-05-11 01:13 by geekwisdom

For the last month or so I've been experiencing sec_error_crl_invalid errors on a couple of sites when using Firefox 3. Thanks to this post on NZGeek's blog I was able to resolve the issue. It turns out by deleting the CRLs (that where disabled anyway) I was able to solve my issue.